Becoming a bridge, not a wall has been artist Martha Talburt’s lifelong pursuit. With deep commitment, humor, irreverence, and pluck, she shares her quest with us, vis à vis art, poetry and journal writing. A BRIDGE NOT A WALL is the result — a lively, color-filled hybrid of a memoir which shares her long sweep of a lifetime. Talburt’s memories flow out non-sequentially, in 146 pages of poems, pictures and reflections. Read her book slowly — start anywhere — it doesn’t matter. Savor the paintings, portraits and drawings — the poems through which Talburt works out her stuff — the challenges, hilarities, disappointments, sadnesses and delights which punctuate a life. Identify with the prose which through the years she has entered in journals, writing down the stuff — airing it in the pages rather than keeping it stuffed inside. Hope and optimism flow out of the whole enterprise, which celebrates a rich, multi-faceted life — from motherhood to elderhood and the numerous reinventions of self in between.